It’s the small luxuries… Remote field work in Antarctica often involves going weeks without a shower or clean clothes. Fortunately for us at the SWAIS 2C field camp, hot water drilling operations mean that we do have hot water for showers, not just baby wipes! We also have a very small washing machine that we use to wash clothing that sits next to the skin. There are several ways to dry the clothes: freeze drying, hanging them on one of the hot water lines, or hanging them next to one of the heaters in the various tents. Regardless of method, having a hot shower and putting on clean clothes after a couple of weeks without feels magical!
The shower and washing machine are set up in the corner of the drill tent, so currently doing some laundry is a great way to interact with the hot-water drilling team to find out more about how it works and see the progress! If we didn't have the hot water drill, we'd have to do our laundry by hand like this.
